In a memo to universities dated August 24, 2026, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, the ICE unit that oversees international students, moved to restrict Curricular Practical Training, the authorization that lets international students hold internships and jobs in their field of study while enrolled. The memo warns that colleges failing to comply may lose their certification to enroll foreign students at all.
The memo says SEVP has “observed a rise in Curricular Practical Training (CPT) authorizations that appear to violate regulatory requirements which permit CPT only where the training is an integral part of an established curriculum.” CPT is, for many international students, the only lawful way to work while in school.
The effect was immediate. Universities including UCLA and UC Berkeley paused certain work-authorization applications for international students while they assessed the memo. Berkeley's international office described it as “more narrow in focus, more direct” than prior guidance, with “content that is more restrictive in nature.”
The certification threat is the lever. A school that loses SEVP certification cannot enroll international students, so the memo functions less as a rule change than as pressure: universities restrict authorizations themselves rather than risk their entire international enrollment. It lands on top of the administration's finalized rule capping international students' stays at four years, ending the decades-old “duration of status” policy (see A Judge Blocks the Administration's Four-Year Cap on International Student Stays a Day Before It Was to Take Effect and Federal Agencies Admit in Court Stipulations That They Used Keyword Searches to Pick University of California Grants for Termination).